Parklands Golf Club

Yesterday our Lady Chairman (and Northumberland County Captain), Candy Brown, had the great pleasure of handing over a cheque for £600 to the Maggie’s Centre at the Freeman Hospital. The proceeds from donations from her Chairman’s day at Parklands were combined with the County Event for the Durnell Trophy held in June, which always go to the county captain’s chosen charity.
She picked Maggie’s Newcastle as her charity this year as it is such a warm and happy place that supports so many people. Maggie’s provides free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends “I have fond memories of my times there with my best friend, also called Maggie, who sadly is no longer with us.”

The Presentation Evening for the Northumbria Junior Golf League was held last Sunday night at Whitley Bay Golf Club. To cap off a great year for our junior team, we were proud to see one of our team players, Ben Jones, receive the Frank Dobson Award Junior for League Player of the Year 2018 – well done Ben – a superb achievement.

We are all aware that the changes to the rules of golf which will come into effect on the 1st January will make many of us have to unlearn the past and embrace some quite fundamental changes. The term Water Hazard disappears and is replaced with Penalty Area; we can remove objects from bunkers without having to distinguish between natural and man-made objects; we can take relief from bunkers if we can’t play out (for the cost of two strokes) and many more. Most of the rules are common sense and are designed to speed up the game. The one which will be the most difficult to manage will be – only 3 minutes to look for the ball (currently 5 mins). We all can relate to instances where the 5-minute rule has been broken, so to impose 3 minutes on yourself will take a lot of self-discipline.

I can thoroughly recommend the R&A app available for iPhone or Android.

If you have played the course in the last week, you will have noticed the fitting tribute made by our green staff on the 11th green …. well done guys, proud to be seen at Parklands.

After some 20 years sitting on golf club committees, I am used to members having a good moan about the committees.

Occasionally, however, I feel I have the right to have a good moan about our members.

Sunday mornings are reserved for our Men Members and this Sunday past was no exception. I tee off around 9.30 meaning around 15 three balls have teed off before me. My second shot went into the greenside bunker on the 1st. When I arrived the bunker was nicely raked apart from 2 sets of footprints left by 2 different members and I assume condoned by their playing partners as acceptable etiquette. There was no excuse; the rake was there, the bunker was in good condition, they couldn’t have been tired by the first hole … they just have no respect for the players following.

Please do not be shy. If your playing partners do not automatically rake the bunker – ask them to do it! If they refuse, rake it for them and report them to a committee member.

PS … I made my 4 following my bunker shot so this is not about sour grapes … it’s all about respect.

From Bryan Malone ……. “What a great effort today, Sunday 7th October, from our Parklands juniors playing in the semi-finals of England northeast region at Abbeydale golf club in Sheffield.  And didn’t they do me and themselves and Parklands proud ….. just getting beat by 3 shots to Huddersfield and 1 shot off second place behind Ramside, a great effort all-round. Young Harrison Sewell had a great knock getting the joint best nett with a 68 well-done lads. I’m very proud of you lads!”

If you use Google Chrome as your web browser, you may have noticed over the last few months that Google warns you that our site is not secure. For the technically minded, I have had to install an SSL certificate and migrate our website to HTTPS. I have also had to migrate our website to a more modern server provided by our hosts.

The change to our members is that when you open the site you need to use an https address at the start. If you open the site via an app or shortcut you may have to open it manually and save the new address. The easiest way to do this is to click the link below.

At the moment you can use either the HTTP or the HTTPS method but it only a matter of time before the old version disappears. When you make an HTTP connection the website connection is not secure. That means that anyone can eavesdrop on the connection and steal or manipulate any data passed back-and-forth. HTTPS is secure. When you make a connection with a website the data being sent is encrypted. it is faster and performs better than HTTP. click below to launch as https ……

https://www.parklandsgolfclub.co.uk/

The third annual Inter v’s Rabbits challenge match took place at Parklands recently and the 14 man Inter team emerged victorious. Top scorer was Andy Bolton who won a 4ball voucher for Hunley Hall.

The President is pictured presenting the trophy to the winning Inter team captain Iwan Owen with Tommy Watson offering his heartiest of congratulations.

Both teams now have a break until the 2019 season begins in April, but any Parklands male members, over age 18, with a handicap of 8 or above, who wishes to play next season should contact the Inter (Handicap 8-15) captain Iwan Owen, or Tommy Watson for the Rabbits team (Handicap 16+)

The Ladies Section’s run of success continues.

Lillian Allison and Vicky Corner finished 3rd today in the Coronation Fours competition at St Andrews. Congratulations Ladies, enjoy that glass of wine at the presentation dinner this evening. Well Done.

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